Effects of Stimulants
29
ysis of the mental, moral, and physical powers. The mind becomes
enervated, and unless through determined effort the habit is overcome,
the activity of the brain is permanently lessened.
All these nerve irritants are wearing away the life-forces, and the
restlessness caused by shattered nerves, the impatience, the mental fee-
bleness, become a warring element, antagonizing to spiritual progress.
Then should not those who advocate temperance and reform be awake
to counteract the evils of these injurious drinks? In some cases it is as
difficult to break up the tea-and-coffee habit as it is for the inebriate to
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discontinue the use of liquor. The money expended for tea and coffee
is worse than wasted. They do the user only harm, and that continually.
Those who use tea, coffee, opium, and alcohol, may sometimes live
to old age, but this fact is no argument in favor of the use of these
stimulants. What these persons might have accomplished, but failed
to do because of their intemperate habits, the great day of God alone
will reveal.
Those who resort to tea and coffee for stimulation to labor, will
feel the evil effects of this course in trembling nerves and lack of
self-control. Tired nerves need rest and quiet. Nature needs time to
recuperate her exhausted energies. But if her forces are goaded on by
the use of stimulants, there is, whenever this process is repeated, a
lessening of real force. For a time more may be accomplished under
the unnatural stimulus, but gradually it becomes more difficult to rouse
the energies to the desired point, and at last exhausted nature can no
longer respond.
The habit of drinking tea and coffee is a greater evil than is often
suspected. Many who have accustomed themselves to the use of
stimulating drinks, suffer from headache and nervous prostration, and
lose much time on account of sickness. They imagine they cannot
live without the stimulus, and are ignorant of its effect upon health.
What makes it the more dangerous is, that its evil effects are so often
attributed to other causes.
Through the use of stimulants, the whole system suffers. The
nerves are unbalanced, the liver is morbid in its action, the quality and
circulation of the blood are affected, and the skin becomes inactive
and sallow. The mind, too, is injured. The immediate influence of
these stimulants is to excite the brain to undue activity, only to leave
it weaker and less capable of exertion. The after-effect is prostration,